Science Forum News

Stephanie Drumheller-Horton, lecturer in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, helped make an interesting discovery in a dinosaur fossil earlier this year. She will be discussing her research at the Science Forum at noon on Friday, April 12, in Dining Room C-D of Thompson-Boling Arena.

Tom Bogart, president of Maryville College and economics professor there, will be speaking at Friday’s Science Forum. Bogart has written two books on urban economics and economic policy and co-authored a book on green energy. The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to share their research with the general public in a conversational presentation.

Richard Evans, a UT research consultant, will discuss the Forest Resources AgResearch and Education Center’s Gas and Oil Research Initiative at the Science Forum on Friday. He is filling in for Kevin Hoyt, who was originally slated to give the presentation. Evans is the former director of the Forest Resources AgResearch and Education Center and the UT Arboretum. He is now retired, but assists with the Gas and Oil Research Initiative.

Paul Campbell Erwin, professor and head of the Department of Public Health, considers John Snow’s cholera investigations one of the foundations of modern epidemiology. He will discuss Snow’s work at this Friday’s Science Forum. The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series during which professors and area scientists discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation.

Juan-Carlos Idrobo, research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and research associate professor at Vanderbilt University, has spent twelve years working in the field of electron microscopy. He’ll be discussing its applications at the Science Forum on March 1. The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research and the general public to learn about science through a conversational presentation.

Lt. Robby Nix, a critical care paramedic with Rural Metro Fire Department, has seen plenty of interesting things in twenty-six years of work. He will discuss the fire service and tell his stories at Friday’s Science Forum. The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research and the general public to learn about science through a conversational presentation.

Linda Kah, an associate professor in earth and planetary sciences, has been working with NASA on the Curiosity rover mission to Mars for eight years. She will be discussing the mission at the Science Forum on Friday. Kah will talk about the mission’s goal to assess if any area of Mars is habitable or has been in the past. The presentation begins at noon in Rooms C-D of Thompson-Boling Arena. Attendees can bring lunch or purchase it at the arena.

Dr. Thomas C. Namey, professor of medicine and exercise science at UT’s Graduate School of Medicine and physician at UT Medical Center, has spent several years studying the effects of low testosterone levels in men. He will talk about the perceptions and misconceptions of the condition at the Science Forum on Friday, February 8.

For the past four years, Samuel Weaver and his company, Proton Power, have been developing a system of creating hydrogen from biomass materials. He’ll be discussing that process and its applications at the Science Forum on Friday. Weaver and his company use biomass—any plant-based material, including waste—to create hydrogen at a low cost.

Alabama lampmussels were considered to be all but extinct when Gerry Dinkins and two other scientists discovered some in the Emory River in Morgan County, Tennessee. Dinkins is curator of malacology, or the study of mollusks, at the Frank H. McClung Museum. He’ll be talking about this discovery at the Science Forum on January 25. The Science Forum is a weekly brown bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to share their research with the general public through a conversational presentation.